ICOD (Instant Capacity On Demand) systems are computer systems that typically include one or more inactive components (known as ICOD components) when shipped to the user. As the term is employed herein, an inactive or ICOD component is a software or hardware component or a set of hardware and/or software components that the user has not paid for and is not entitled to use as a matter of right.
Vendors include inactive or ICOD components in a computer system for many reasons. For example, a vendor may anticipate that a particular user may need additional software and/or hardware capability in the future and may wish to include the additional capability in an inactive form so that the additional capability can be quickly enabled at a later date if needed. The ICOD components may be processors, memory, cells, subsystems, or the like, and can be activated when the user wishes to obtain additional capability from the ICOD system.
Generally speaking, when an ICOD system is shipped to a user, either the vendor or the customer will deactivate the inactive components so that only the components that have been paid for will be active during use. This deactivation may happen one time prior to shipping, or the ICOD system may include software to automatically deactivate the ICOD components upon system booting based on the licensing data stored in the ICOD system itself.
Vendors of ICOD systems are generally concerned with, among many others, two issues: compliance to the ICOD licensing terms and responsiveness to technical support requests. Vendors are interested in ensuring that ICOD systems stay in compliance because if a user can utilize the additional capability without paying, there is no incentive to purchase the additional capability. Vendors are also interested in being responsive to technical assistance requests since such responsiveness improves customer service and customer loyalty, which can lead to increased sales volume over time.
With respect to compliance, some vendors rely on the user's honesty, preferring to depend on the user to voluntarily pay for the use of the inactive components when the user activates additional components in the ICOD system. Under the honor system, many users do indeed voluntarily report and pay when an inactive component is activated in order to legitimately acquire the use of the additional components. Other users, however, either through ignorance or by willful action, simply disregard the obligation to pay when activating a previously inactive component.
To ensure compliance, vendors in the past employ an ICOD software agent, e.g., codes in the ICOD system, to periodically take inventory of the inactive (or active) components and compare the number of inactive (or active) components with the licensing data stored in non-volatile memory. The data regarding the number of inactive (or active) components, along with other identification information such as the serial number of the computer system, the host name, the IP address, and the like may then be sent in an email to the vendor to allow the vendor to audit for compliance.
If a user's computer system has a greater number of active components therein than the number of active components allowed under license, the user's system is deemed to be in a non-compliant state, and the vendor may undertake any number of corrective actions. For example, the vendor may wish to send a sales representative to the user whose system is found to be in a non-compliant state in order to suggest the licensing of the activated components. As another example, the vendor may notify the user of the non-compliant status and request that the buyer either immediately pay for the use of the inactive components, or to cease the non-compliant use.
However, it has been found that many users are reluctant to endow their production computer systems with an email infrastructure, and to risk exposing the computer system to the security risks that accompany email access. For some users, even the exposure of the host name to the outside world is unacceptable. For these users, it is not possible to implement an email-based auditing program.
As one alternative, a vendor may send out a human field service representative to the user's site to conduct a personal audit of the user's ICOD computer system. To prevent dishonest users from cheating by placing an otherwise out-of-compliance ICOD system in compliance only temporarily in order to satisfy the personal audit by the vendor, some vendors require their users to agree to surprise personal audits. However, many users resent the unannounced intrusion by a stranger in their facilities, and the unplanned disruption that a surprise personal audit may entail. Even if the users acquiesce to surprise personal audits, this approach is still quite costly for the vendor due to the cost of hiring field service personnel, travel time and expenses, and the like.
With respect to technical support, vendors are aware that poor technical support leads to dissatisfied customers. Generally speaking, vendors with a good reputation for technical support enjoy customer loyalty and a higher sales volume, all other things being equal. In order to provide good technical support for a given user, a vendor must first have a clear understanding of the technical problems faced by that given customer. For some very simple problems, the vendor may be able to assess the technical problem from the verbal or written description provided by the user. Since computer problems may be quite complex to diagnose, and since users are often inexperienced in accurately describing technical problems, many vendors end up resorting to field service calls to timely resolve technical problems for their customers. However, as mentioned earlier, field service calls are expensive and even though a vendor may sometimes be able to pass the field service call cost onto his customer, vendors are constantly searching for a less costly way to provide technical support for their customers.
Some computer systems are connected to the Internet or another public network, and a vendor may be able to diagnose certain technical problems remotely by accessing the user's computer system via appropriate networking technologies. As mentioned earlier, however, many customers are reluctant to provide their production computer systems with Internet connectivity and/or an email facility. For these customers, the use of field service personnel may be the only choice to resolve their technical problems.